WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has invented yet another heroic myth about himself, this time making his own aides and staff seem like ignorant fools who needed his tutoring to understand basic functions of their own agencies in collecting import taxes.
The topic of his latest entirely fictional “sir story” is the tens of billions of dollars Americans are paying each month in new tariffs, thanks to his trade war against the world. In Trump’s telling, “his people” could not understand where the extra money was coming from.
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“Our country is taking in tens of billions of dollars and trillions of dollars, actually trillions of dollars in tariffs, you know all about it. It’s been amazing. They say, ‘Why are we taking in so much money?’ Last week they found $29 billion, and they couldn’t figure out where it came from. I said, ‘Check the tariff shelf,’ and they said, ‘How did you know that’s where it came from,’” he said in an Aug. 14 speech, in what appears to have been the first telling of the “tariff shelf” tale.
Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at Yale University’s Budget Lab and formerly a top economist in the Joe Biden White House, said, “Tariffs are taxes. When you raise them, you raise revenue.”
Tedeschi is among experts across the political spectrum, including those with substantial government experience, who said Trump’s implication that the new revenue is mystifying officials at the United States Trade Representative, which writes the language implementing the tariffs, U.S. Customs, which collects them from importers at ports of entry, and the U.S. Treasury, which keeps track of all incoming payments, makes no sense.
“The staffs at Treasury, USTR and Customs understand tariffs completely,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who once ran the Congressional Budget Office and who later served as Arizona Sen. John McCain’s top economic adviser during his 2008 presidential run.
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“I’m not aware of anyone who is surprised by the reality that new taxes raise new tax revenue,” said University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers.
The facts have not stopped Trump from telling the story. Again. And again. And again.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a luncheon in the Rose Garden of the White House last week in Washington, D.C. Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
“The other day, they had $31 billion that they found, $31 billion. ‘Sir, we found $31 billion, and we’re not sure from where it came.’ A gentleman came in, a financial guy. I said, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ He said, ‘We don’t know where it came.’ I said, ‘Check the tariff shelf.’ ‘No, sir, the tariffs haven’t started in that sector yet.’ I said, ‘Yes, they have, they started seven weeks ago, check it.’ Comes back 20 minutes later, ‘Sir, you’re right, it came from tariffs. $31 billion,’” he told the military’s top generals and admirals in a Sept. 30 gathering in Quantico, Virginia.
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“They found $31 billion. They came to see me, ‘Sir, we found $31 billion.’ They said, ‘We don’t know why.’ I said, ‘Was this a good find or a bad find?’ ‘It was a good find. It was a plus 31.’ We’re used to finding minus 31s, right, for the last 30 years. I said, ‘Check the tariff shelf.’ ‘Well, those tariffs haven’t kicked in.’ ‘Yes, they did, they kicked in two months ago. Check it,’” he told Republican senators at a White House patio lunch last week in an increasingly embellished edition of the story. “He comes back two hours later, ‘Sir, you were right. We have an additional $31 billion. … They kicked in earlier than we thought. You were right.’”
Trump White House officials did not respond to HuffPost queries. One official said Trump was using a “metaphor” and asked that questions be submitted in writing, but then did not reply to them.
One of Trump’s favorite styles of falsehood as president has been a fictionalized account of his prowess in which he solves an intractable problem that has bedeviled experts in the field. The subgenre often features full-grown men who are in tears because of their gratitude. In his recounting, they almost always address him as “sir.”
In the “tariff shelf” version, Trump generally adds that the tariff money is being paid by foreign countries, which is a lie. Tariffs are paid by the American firms or individuals who import products from foreign countries. Those costs are then typically passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. In those instances where a company chooses not to raise prices enough to recoup the full amount of the tariffs in order to keep or increase market share, that amount is effectively paid by shareholders and owners of the company.
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Trump actually began his claims about the mysterious tariff revenue back in June, except in that version, it was congressional staff who were perplexed by the money’s provenance, not his own agencies.
“I got a call from Congress last night, ‘Sir, there’s a problem.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ ‘Money is pouring in. We don’t know how to account for it.’ I said, ‘Check the tariffs, $88 billion came in from tariffs,’” he told reporters June 18 as he showed off one of his new flagpoles he had installed at the White House.
It is unclear why Trump began claiming there exists such a thing as a tariff “shelf.” The U.S. Treasury does not store cash on shelves in a building, and most transactions today are done electronically.
Trump began imposing tariffs by fiat almost immediately upon taking office in January, notwithstanding language in both the Constitution and in statute that gives that power to Congress, by claiming that various “emergencies” he has declared give him that authority. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a challenge to most of those tariffs next week. The ruling, when it comes, could also offer clues as to how the high court will treat other extraordinary powers Trump has claimed by citing emergencies.
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